Take the snarl of Patti Smith, the shriek of Kate Bush and the enigmatic smile of Mona Lisa, pack it into a small, wiry frame, dress it in black and turn it loose with some distorted rock 'n' roll riffs, and you might come close to the dark, compelling heart of P.J. Harvey.
Her new album, Is This De- sire?, proves the lady from Yeovil in Somerset hasn't distilled her somewhat disturbing musical vision, and she continues to explore the shadowy reaches of the soul where others dare not look.
Although the album is a mixed bag of emotions, Harvey's live presence is powerful and finely focused. Backed by a band which features John Parish and Eric Drew Feldman, Harvey slides into the uneasy glare of Catherine and building up the tension fragment by fragment.
This was sweet despair wrapped in a strong chemical dose of gnarled basslines and short-circuited guitar, and it wasn't for the faint-hearted.
Like an eerie soundtrack for a psychological tale of self-destruction, the music delivered some startling effect: the taut, grinding feel of Joy, the earthrumbling unease of Electric Light, and the shock-horror slash of 50 ft Queenie. The live potency of songs such as Angelene, My Beautiful Leah and A Perfect Day Elise should prompt many of us to check out the album again, just to see what we've been missing.
Onstage, however, the songs seem to have taken a strange, scary life of their own, and when Harvey lets out that chilling scream of catharsis, even the likes of Courtney Love would run away in fear.
